Wednesday, February 7, 2024 | 8:00 PM | Open to the Public

Join Dr. Xandy Frisch of George Mason University for an evening of ancient history. Beginning in 586 BCE, a virtually uninterrupted succession of empires ruled over Jews both in Israel and in the Diaspora. This lecture will explore how one specific Jewish community, the sectarians at Qumran, responded to the sorrows and pains imposed by forces out of their control.

Some of this distress inflicted by external, imperial forces is illuminated by their rules of conduct expressed in a number of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Qumran sectarians used purification rituals, such as mikvaot, as tools for coping with the turmoil affecting their community, and also mobilized their own “internal” power and resources.